Poll: Open discussion on "rude" and other rules

[veloper]

On the subject of the 'T'-word rule, I've never been a fan of it myself. If anything, it actually makes trolling EASIER.

If a troll is clever enough, they'll never be moderated for trolling (or they'll be moderated so rarely, ie: no more than once every 6 months, so they never end up banned).
And no matter how outrageous or outlandish their posts or threads get, or how obvious their trolling is, we're still not allowed to call them what they are. This includes pointing out their behavior to other people who might not be aware of the user's history or M.O.

And that's the problem, "just ignore the trolls" doesn't work if people are unaware the person is even a troll to begin with. Which means trolls ALWAYS get fed, at least initially, until someone else (who is unaware) comes along and engages with the troll, and the whole problem starts again.

To make matters worse, oftentimes you'll see people being moderated for (correctly) identifying a troll, while the troll gets away scot-free.
So no, I've never been a fan of that rule myself.

I'm glad I'm not the only person to ever wonder about the silly T-word rule.

I guess the Escapist staff secretly enjoy troll posts and don't want the members here to become too educated.

Nothing to do about it except just roll with it.

 

[veloper]

On the subject of the 'T'-word rule, I've never been a fan of it myself. If anything, it actually makes trolling EASIER.

If a troll is clever enough, they'll never be moderated for trolling (or they'll be moderated so rarely, ie: no more than once every 6 months, so they never end up banned).
And no matter how outrageous or outlandish their posts or threads get, or how obvious their trolling is, we're still not allowed to call them what they are. This includes pointing out their behavior to other people who might not be aware of the user's history or M.O.

And that's the problem, "just ignore the trolls" doesn't work if people are unaware the person is even a troll to begin with. Which means trolls ALWAYS get fed, at least initially, until someone else (who is unaware) comes along and engages with the troll, and the whole problem starts again.

To make matters worse, oftentimes you'll see people being moderated for (correctly) identifying a troll, while the troll gets away scot-free.
So no, I've never been a fan of that rule myself.

I'm glad I'm not the only person to ever wonder about the silly T-word rule.

I guess the Escapist staff secretly enjoy troll posts and don't want the members here to become too educated.

Nothing to do about it except just roll with it.

Maybe I can offer some perspective from experiences on a totally unrelated forum, which I will admit was a lot smaller? Calling someone a "troll" can be just as true as calling someone dumber than a bag of hammers, but it's still an insult. More, on heavily moderated forums it tends to result in trolls using the term to troll each other, which turns everyone else OFF.

That's the thing that always seems missing from threads like these, wherever they are... just how few of the MANY people who come to a place every day actually have these problems. Then again, I think that if people who struggled to control and express themselves were able to appreciate that instead of blaming others for their problems, they wouldn't be those people in the first place.

These rules keep a tiny, loud minority of disruptive people in check, so the rest of the userbase can get on with their lives without worrying about someone swooping in and shitting all over them.

But is it really an insult though?
A troll is just a person making troll posts. You don't get any warnings with pointing out how, for example, a poster may be misrepresenting facts (lying) for example, but you will for saying somebody's trolling, or how a troll post "is a 1/10", for example.

It seems smarter to me to actually point out to all the inexperienced members responding to lame, obvious trolls, that such is what a troll post looks like and hope they will learn.

It's not that I really mind it though, because some rare good troll posts can have me in stitches, but the rule just seems a bit out of place on the Escapist. But then again, maybe the admins have an idiosyncratic sense of humor and enjoy the lamer stuff also.

 

[runic knight]

On the subject of the 'T'-word rule, I've never been a fan of it myself. If anything, it actually makes trolling EASIER.

If a troll is clever enough, they'll never be moderated for trolling (or they'll be moderated so rarely, ie: no more than once every 6 months, so they never end up banned).
And no matter how outrageous or outlandish their posts or threads get, or how obvious their trolling is, we're still not allowed to call them what they are. This includes pointing out their behavior to other people who might not be aware of the user's history or M.O.

And that's the problem, "just ignore the trolls" doesn't work if people are unaware the person is even a troll to begin with. Which means trolls ALWAYS get fed, at least initially, until someone else (who is unaware) comes along and engages with the troll, and the whole problem starts again.

To make matters worse, oftentimes you'll see people being moderated for (correctly) identifying a troll, while the troll gets away scot-free.
So no, I've never been a fan of that rule myself.

I'm glad I'm not the only person to ever wonder about the silly T-word rule.

I guess the Escapist staff secretly enjoy troll posts and don't want the members here to become too educated.

Nothing to do about it except just roll with it.

Maybe I can offer some perspective from experiences on a totally unrelated forum, which I will admit was a lot smaller? Calling someone a "troll" can be just as true as calling someone dumber than a bag of hammers, but it's still an insult. More, on heavily moderated forums it tends to result in trolls using the term to troll each other, which turns everyone else OFF.

That's the thing that always seems missing from threads like these, wherever they are... just how few of the MANY people who come to a place every day actually have these problems. Then again, I think that if people who struggled to control and express themselves were able to appreciate that instead of blaming others for their problems, they wouldn't be those people in the first place.

These rules keep a tiny, loud minority of disruptive people in check, so the rest of the userbase can get on with their lives without worrying about someone swooping in and shitting all over them.

But is it really an insult though?
A troll is just a person making troll posts. You don't get any warnings with pointing out how, for example, a poster may be misrepresenting facts (lying) for example, but you will for saying somebody's trolling, or how a troll post "is a 1/10", for example.

It seems smarter to me to actually point out to all the inexperienced members responding to lame, obvious trolls, that such is what a troll post looks like and hope they will learn.

It's not that I really mind it though, because some rare good troll posts can have me in stitches, but the rule just seems a bit out of place on the Escapist. But then again, maybe the admins have an idiosyncratic sense of humor and enjoy the lamer stuff also.

Yeah, it's really an insult. You try calling someone a troll on or offline and see how they take it... shockingly similar to the reaction you'd get from "Fuckhead". If you want to argue that "troll" isn't an insult, fair enough, but I wouldn't base an argument on it.

I imagine they would react the same to "sexist" or "misogynistic" as well, yet use of them tends to be more freely accepted towards groups. I am pretty sure it is acceptable to call people trolls in a group, but not individually, which seems counter-intuitive if you want to avoid insults. It says you can insult en mass, but not directly, which doesn't actually stop insults.

Also worth noting that the word troll has a slightly different meaning online then off, as online it describes a behavior in posting, while off it more often describes a person's looks, so that might not be the best way to argue that point.

Not that it can't be used as an insult, certainly, but people can use a lot of words as insults. That goes back to what others have raised as concern though, is that it isn't that you are insulting, it is that you are insulting and wording it more transparently that is the problem. People can be as rude, condescending and insulting all they like, if they word it well. That doesn't stop people from being jerks, that feeds the ego of those who are and survive for it.

 

[EvilRoy]

I imagine they would react the same to "sexist" or "misogynistic" as well, yet use of them tends to be more freely accepted towards groups. I am pretty sure it is acceptable to call people trolls in a group, but not individually, which seems counter-intuitive if you want to avoid insults. It says you can insult en mass, but not directly, which doesn't actually stop insults.

Actually, that's something that kind of drives me up the wall. I see misogynist and sexist get thrown around left and right as actual accusations and insults without receiving warnings, but the one time I see someone accuse another of misandry and they get an instant warning. I can't even call it a context thing either because far more in the past, but plenty still today, misogynist gets thrown about like rice at a wedding and it never gets called regardless of how why or when its used. They are either both insults or neither are insults, and should be treated as such.

 

[Lightknight]

It would be different if you couldn't freely challenge the infraction, but as is, you can and from what I've read the mods really listen. If there were a lack of accountability then the subjective nature of the rules would be a problem.

The purpose of us having so many warnings to start with before suspensions kick in is to give us the opportunity to gauge where the line lays. The most solid rule here is simply not issuing a direct insult against another person. That's hardly subjective to enforce.

The thing is, there's more than a few posters around that know how to directly insult someone without ever having to directly confront them, and get no warnings as a result due to the "don't be rude" rule being enforced the way it is. And there's been a couple times I've been called out on my junk in a direct manner, only for the poster in question to get a warning, while someone else calls me out on it in a much more low-handed and "rude" way.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm just much more open to being called a "stupid shit and here's why..." than having a paragraph of reasons/insinuations/links to heavily biased studies on why I'm the scum of the earth for having the opinion I hold. Sadly the latter has surpassed the former in terms of frequency(not that it was ever that frequent in the first place, but there were obvious reasons people were warned, now it's a bit more vague in alot of cases I'm seeing)

I think that's because our rule is more of a "Don't be an overt jerk" than just a "Don't be a jerk" rule. They are looking for clear crossings of the rule that are self-contained within a single post so that when someone says, "Why was this person suspended/banned" the mods don't have to pour through several pages of someone's subtlety and potentially find that they read into things too much at the time. Subtlety is a hell of a thing to moderate.

There's also a difference between being frank and being a jerk.

Regardless, your complaint here is that not enough people are getting a warning. If that's the case, then the rules are erring on the side of fewer infractions than more. That's pretty healthy for a site.